18 June 2005 was remembered by the residents of moscow for one very specific notable event — a terrible downpour across the entire city, which had in fact begun on the evening of the 17th. It was precisely at that time that a small open-air festival was due to take place at the moscow Bike Centre.
The organisers were the concert agency TMC. According to their press release, the show was billed to feature the following collectives: PILIGRIM, TEATR TENI (though this band was not present at the concert), MORAY EEL, ORGIYA PRAVEDNIKOV, and ARIDA VORTEX. The event was scheduled to start at 18:00 — arriving at half past six (a fair distance from the metro), I found the following: virtually no people inside, and the sounds of instruments being tuned. PILIGRIM plays power metal, but the sounds were more reminiscent of grindcore — in other words, the sound quality was appalling. Attempts to tune the sound to any acceptable level only succeeded an hour later, and not long before eight the concert finally began. There were about 40 people at that point. Near the stage, discs of the performing bands and some others were on sale. PILIGRIM itself made no particular impression — thoroughly conventional power metal without keyboards; the band played, if I am not mistaken, 4 of their own songs, followed by a cover of EPIDEMIYA, and then the guys aimed too high — they decided to play "Mirror, Mirror", the BLIND GUARDIAN hit that Hansi loves so much to close concerts with. The vocalist delivered that composition reasonably well, but the instrumental side was very thin. The band did not receive serious reception.
By then it was already known that TEATR TENI would not be appearing, and so ORGIYA PRAVEDNIKOV took the stage. The first thing that stood out was the absence of electronics. This was explained when Kalugin noted that the drummer had gone to Budapest for the DREAM THEATER concert (the drummer is understandable), and therefore the band's guitarist would perform as "co-producer" while the bassist would play acoustic. Sound problems were present here too — initially they could not tune Kalugin's own microphone. The band played five songs (as is well known, Kalugin does not write short pieces) — "Radost Moya", "Nichego Net Prekrasnee Smerti", "Voskhozhdeniye Chernogo Mesyatsa", "Ubit Svoyu Mat", and finally the song "Spokoy i Svoboda". The sound situation was simply dreadful — now the flute would disappear, now the second microphone, and Kalugin's own microphone periodically failed too, but this did not ruin matters. Some people stepped away while others listened with pleasure to this very unusual music unlike anything else. In the middle of the set it began to rain.
The next band — MORAY EEL — what can one say; once again the band delighted with excellent performance, nothing to fault. The only issue — due to sound problems the balance between rhythm guitar and vocals suffered seriously; an optimal volume level was never achieved. During their set the rain was already falling very heavily.
Finally, the band most people had come for (some had clearly come for Orgiya and left after their set) — around 70 people, most of whom had sheltered either on stage to the right of the musicians or under the awning to their left. True, some people had armed themselves with large umbrellas (which, generally speaking, provided limited shelter) and in the torrential rain listened to ARIDA VORTEX (the band was performing with a new bassist). The programme was the most substantial — 11 songs. Not without incident here either. Already on the second song "Break The Fetters", at its end, something happened with Roman Guryev's guitar — or rather with the strings — and for 10 minutes — the end of that song, "Revolution Time", and "Riot In Heaven" — he was absent, changing strings. Credit is due to rhythm guitarist Andrei Sedletsky, who essentially played for two; and it should especially be noted that Endy did not lose his footing in the situation when the vocal load increased, and handled everything excellently. A few more songs, including the title track and bonus "Uletay" from their album Evil Sorcery. "Uletay" — the only song to which almost everyone sang along. Some of the audience forgot about the rain and, coming out from under their umbrellas, were nearly moshing in the front row.
That, in general, was that. The concert was not very long and left many positive emotions, unspoiled by the cold rain. The negative emotions were caused by the organisation of the concert — and first and foremost by an absolutely unprepared sound side.
The editorial team thanks Concert Agency TMC and personally Margarita Dmitrieva for the accreditation provided.
Report by Alan